


in the northern fields never returning

by Sosostris



Series: Five Years Later [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard is a patriarchal imperialist nightmare, Avengers: Endgame Fix-It, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sif Lives, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 22:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sosostris/pseuds/Sosostris
Summary: She came three weeks ago, but it was – as the Valkryie would say, in an idiom picked up from her travels, a day late and a dollar short. A day late, indeed – the day after the funeral, the Odinson’s funeral.





	in the northern fields never returning

Sif’s nose is still red, her eyes still swollen. She had wept heartily when she heard the news – heaving, bent double, without shame. Her lips still tremble, though she forces the quaver from her voice.

She came three weeks ago, but it was – as the Valkryie would say, in an idiom picked up from her travels, a day late and a dollar short. A day late, indeed – the day after the funeral, the Odinson’s funeral.

“Honourable deaths, all; yet utterly without purpose,” Sif says, as flatly as she can. “Oh, that I had been here, at least, to fight beside them – had I but known. Had I had word!

“But no word did I get of Asgard, save that it was consumed in flame; and the rumours, which I thought true, that all had perished at the hands of Hela.”

The Valkyrie – no, Sif thinks, the _queen_ – stares out of the window, her view of the horizon clear and unbroken from the window – here in this modest stone building, pretending to be a castle, that has replaced the palatial halls both women once served as sword-bearers in, lifetimes apart.

Waves break on the cliffs – the daughters of Ægir are dancing – and overhead, out of sight, the gulls cry. _Did they cry when the longboat sailed into the sun ablaze for Thor?_ Sif wonders numbly.

“You were fighting elsewhere, with that Earth woman, the warrior Mar-Vell,” Brunnhilde says, after a while.

“I’m sure you upheld the name of our people” – her lip curls, surely at the memory of the price of Asgard’s treasures – “with distinction. More than I did in my own exile, anyway.”

Sif is still unused to the accent, to the new queen’s irreverent tones, to how she says _Earth_ instead of _Midgard_ ; but even Thor, after his long years with the mortals, had sounded like that towards the end.

She has watched the video of his last moments on the battlefield, standing against Thanos – footage from the Iron Man’s helm – over and over, as though some fresh revelation might dawn. But it is the same every time: axe and hammer, the terrible carnage; a desperate grappling; Thor bringing his fingers together to wield the gauntlet.

Lightning, so much lightning – the feed turned unbearably white and the Iron Man shielded his eyes, blinded.

And then there was Thor – Thor, giant-slayer, _though was Loki not a giant too?_ ; Thor who survived a star – one-eyed Thor, son of Frigga, lying gasping and blistered, only to as his last act proclaim Brunnhilde his heir.

He would not have done that if he believed his brother lived. He is gone. _They are both gone._

_And I, only I, remain._ This is when Sif cuts off the feed, every time, her breath tight in her chest as though she’d been struck in the stomach and left winded.

When Heimdall raps on the door, calling out in his deep, stolid voice, she startles.

Brunnhilde, beautiful and restless and tired, only turns towards the noise.

***

Witches were never very popular on Asgard, for all that Frigga was raised by them. Sif thinks it’s because you can trust good steel, whereas seiðr is founded upon lies – and, for some, upon the shame of ergi.

Oddly, she realises now, she never particularly thought Loki to be argr, what the Midgardians call _queer_ ; although in the eyes of many he well must have been – deserving of outlawry, were he not – had he not been – a prince.

In any case, old habits die hard, even far from home, which is why the town’s two witches live together – although not uncomfortably, not with their prowess – on the outskirts of New Asgard. Sif ran at an easy lope, Brunnhilde and Heimdall not far behind, but it took too many minutes to reach the sisters’ cottage.

Her blood roared in her ears with every step, louder than Heimdall’s hasty words of explanation, and she is still thrumming with fury, with shock, when she arrives.

It takes an effort to keep her hand from slipping off her sweaty pommel, as she advances with her blade before her. It takes a conscious effort to remind herself that the figure standing before her, still wearing his horned helm, is not – is not _yet_ – the Loki who posed as the Allfather, who banished her, whom she hates.

Richly dressed, even with his emerald cape stained and torn at the hem, this Loki stands in a room upturned with the remains of a fight. He has pinned the enchantress Amora to the stone wall by her throat, a wicked-looking dirk slipping from his other sleeve, while Amora bares her teeth at him and curls her own green-flashing fingers into the beginning of a spell-working.

Lorelei – who, Sif is disappointed to note, is a free woman again – watches the struggle warily from beyond Loki’s arm-span ( _which shows she does not know how true he throws his knives_ ), starting another working of her own.

But her shoulders relax when the royal party enters the scene, Sif, Heimdall and Brunnhilde.

“Shining Heimdall, you have heard my plea and beheld my plight with your all-seeing eyes,” Lorelei purrs.

“My sister and I were visited by this guest here – as you see, quite unlooked for – who came through the cleft between worlds, when the humans’ captain returned to the past and closed off one stream of time.”

In the silence that stretches out, the gaze of all three combatants swivels to Sif – who is now aware, with a prickle in her skin, that she is jointly their least favourite person in the room. She bites her lip.

Then “Oh my _gods_ ,” Brunnhilde exclaims, striding forward to rap both sorceresses’ hands with the flat of her sword, and knocking the dagger away from Loki.

“I thought ‘queen’ was going to be a formality, and I was going to meet cute ladies, run a nice little fishing village, bit of farming on the side. Not host family therapy.

“You,” she barks out, advancing on Loki and waving her sword at him. “I did not go through extremely awkward sexual tension with you on Sakaar, and also do all that emotional work, only for you to undo it.

“And,” the Valkyrie-Queen adds, throwing a glare at Lorelei with deep disgust, “I helped toss _your_ sorry ass in jail once upon a time, so don’t forget that you’re out on sufferance, what the people on this planet call parole.

“And you, Amora” – Brunnhilde runs her fingers through tight curls, scratches her head with her free hand – “well, I’ve got nothing on you right now. But if you so much as sneeze, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Sif is sure that she must be gaping in amazement as Brunnhilde declares, “Can we all just sit down, _please_ , have a drink, and no one try anything funny? I’m on the wagon, but what I _want_ is whisky.”

***

“You fell between worlds,” Sif repeats. She has not dared to taste the tea in her incongruously dainty porcelain cup, because Lorelei has possibly poisoned it. But she has sat at stranger conferences before.

This Loki, who looks so young and so mad, says, “Once, from the Bifrost, and again when my timeline broke.”

He must have been mad before, but _all that falling through space and time probably didn’t help_ , Sif thinks.

“And you have learnt who it was who gave you the sceptre,” Heimdall says slowly. “You have learnt that he slew you – here, in this universe – and that he was slain in turn by your brother, who mourned you.”

This Loki says, brashly, “I must have been a fool, in this world, to die in vain for the Odinson.” But to Sif, who grew up at his side, there is a note of uncertainty in the rejoinder.

“But of course, you know,” says Amora, sipping delicately and winding a stray blonde lock around one finger, “that you can get him back.” She blinks. “Blood magic, old magic. After Ragnarök, all is reborn.”

Lorelei continues on her sister’s behalf. “We had no inclination to do this, but you are here now, and you are fresh with power. Your mother you cannot win back, for she went to her sleep before Surtur, and she rules in Fólkvangr forever; yet the shades of all those who fought and fell after Ragnarök had nowhere to go.

“Including yours,” she adds accusingly. “When you died on the _Statesman_ – the other you. _He_ is waiting. He will come to us, Loki who was slain, if we find the hell-gates and go to him. You are his ready vessel.”

To Sif – who has had some experience with them, but not, so far, the best of luck – this is starting, ominously, to resemble the start of another heist.

Brunnhilde swigs from a flask ( _kale smoothie_ , she’d said, an unheard-of potion to Sif), then mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like _nice little fishing village_ , trailing off into _raid on the underworld, seriously?_.

This Loki, the Loki from the past, whom Sif alternately pities and despises, looks pale and thoughtful.

**Author's Note:**

> This plot is low-key (pun unintended) inspired by B’Elanna Torres’ storyline in VOY: “Barge of the Dead.” Yes, as far as I’m concerned, Loki and Thor finish MCU Phase 3 awaiting judgement in the Halls of Mandos together – the fic title is, of course, from the Song of the Mounds of Mundburg:
>
>> There Théoden fell, Thengling mighty,  
> to his golden halls and green pastures  
> in the Northern fields never returning,  
> high lord of the host.


End file.
